


Daydreamer's Fantasy

by HM (HyperMint)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Original World Trade Center, September 11 Attacks, fantasies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 02:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16884297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperMint/pseuds/HM
Summary: Have you ever wanted something so much that you would do anything for the chance to get to do it?





	Daydreamer's Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar.
> 
> AN: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
> 
> With the passing of another year, 9/11 recedes further back into history.
> 
> As far as this particular story goes, I have absolutely no idea how or when I even started thinking about this, but the idea of the second part really stuck with me somehow and I couldn't figure out how to write it for the longest time. 
> 
> Then the idea of the first part started forming and here we are.
> 
> There might be some things in here that you might take exception to or identify with and I don't know if I feel sorry about that. I think that if there's a story that you really think about or that has an effect on its readers, the author did their job.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One: part of the daydream starts.

* * *

 

Neal liked drawing things.

He would draw anything and everything he could get away with, even without knowing he was doing it.

Another pencil, a half-empty mug, a chair with a coat on the back of it.

A dropped penny on the sidewalk, a bird peeking out from the branches of a tree overhead, even clouds in the sky.

Sometimes, he would even catch himself doodling the FBI crest on a stray corner.

Then there were people.

A little girl visiting from Japan, an old man on his morning walk, the waitress at his favorite cafe down the street.

June's head thrown back with warm laughter, Mozzie's lit eyes in the middle of an interesting debate, Elizabeth Mitchell in the middle of her art manager/ event hostess role as the FBI civilian contractor did her thing.

Jones' narrow eyed smile, Diana's suspicious look and no nonsense demeanor, Hughes' concentration through the glass windows in his office. 

Nothing and no one was exempt from Neal Caffrey's artistic touch.

But maybe his absolute favorite subject was Peter Burke.

At first, it was something of a teasing note to his pursuer; a glimpse from a window looking down at Agent Burke's investigative team from safety, a peek at the Agent's sturdy frame through a crowd.

Then it was because he was a criminal locked up and Peter was the one to catch him. Only natural that a criminal - no matter who it was or what they were in for - think about the person who put them behind bars.

Neal, though, never intended anything malicious when he drew Peter. The Agent rarely smiled - even at other people he wasn't looking to put in jail -, so Neal had to think about what an actual genuine smile would look like on the man and it bothered him until he dutifully picked up a pencil and started drawing.

It slowly got out of hand, even years after being released into the CI program and being under Peter's watchful eye. 

Smiles turned into laughter and fascination and frustration at difficult cases, even the occasional anger, and then sadness and a blankness Neal didn't ever want to see in brown eyes again for the rest of his life.

He couldn't ever discover why Peter would feel sad and look blank and always want him nearby after that, but Peter was watchful and overbearing and Neal might be okay with a lot of that for a variety of reasons. He was  _not_ any of those things because he was clingy and Neal never felt right when he started seeing the signs of ... well, the best thing he could think of to call it was 'scared' Peter.

Being White Collar and not exactly trained for a lot of things like the ATF or NCIS, Neal would think that Peter would be reasonably ... cautious in the course of doing his job, but WC wasn't kidding themselves about being ready for a firefight at any given time. It just wasn't going to happen.

That said, Peter never got scared.

Neal didn't think he  _ever_ got scared for much of anything, but something in Peter's past really shook him up and it took Neal longer than he'd care to admit to realize the sadness and blank looks and 'overbearing watchdog more than usual' was Peter being scared.

No, not scared.

 _Terrified_.

Which, in the life of a White Collar Agent where violence was the exception rather than the rule, could mean just about anything happened and Neal didn't want to ask because he didn't like Peter being scared or terrified of anything - even though Mozzie might have a point about a traumatic incident when he was a kid.

Anyway.

The more Neal stayed with Peter, the more he drew him and those sketches soon ended up in the realm of daydream.

He wasn't sure when he started wondering what lust would look like in Peter's brown eyes, but that's what started appearing in sketches one day and Neal was struck by how different Peter looked. 

Regular Peter was handsome and cute and Neal could stare at him for hours, the resulting sketches from those all too short glances putting Peter in a variety of either platonic or a little more than platonic settings; i.e. at the office or on a date type of outing to a museum or park or coffeeshop.

Daydream Peter, on the other hand, was - for lack of a better term -  _hot_.

Dark brown eyes staring at him as if Peter would like nothing more than to unwrap him like a chocolate and take his time with the treat he revealed.

As if Neal was everything he ever wanted.

Hell, Neal hadn't even been aware of his attraction to Peter until he saw that sketch. 

Then he started wondering what how it would feel to have Peter's undivided attention and gently firm touches and that predictably had him seeing stars as he brought himself off to one fantasy after another about different scenarios Peter could use to his advantage.

He would wonder why roleplay was suddenly a turn-on for him when it wasn't before, but he never had anyone before that his imagination teased him with the way his did with Peter.

And, of course, now that he confirmed an attraction to Peter, he began seeing their interactions with a completely different lens.

He would hang out with 'regular' Peter in a nice and safe way, then come home and sketch things the way his daydreams demanded he imagine them. 

Then he would go back and Peter would smile at him and he would think of Peter in bed for a lazy morning with hooded eyes and messy hair and Neal would find somewhere else to be before he gave Peter clues about his thoughts.

It wasn't something to be ashamed of - imagining Peter as a lover would - and he was almost eighty-five percent sure the older man was bi at the very least, but Peter was the only person he could trust and call his very best friend. Why would he want to mess that up?

Sometimes, though...

Peter would give him a look or act a certain way that made Neal wonder if he wasn't actually projecting his feelings onto the Agent.

It was really that uncertainty - not knowing if it was Peter feeling the same or if it was Neal making himself think so - that made him reluctant to try anything even hinting at his thoughts.

And it wasn't like _all_ his thoughts were of the sexual variety.

When he was feeling particularly bad or morose, he had daydreams where Peter was wrapping him up for a tight hug or a cuddle or was just next to him and offering his presence which was sometimes all Neal really needed.

El found out somehow about Neal's new regard for Peter and would gleefully ask for all the juicy daydreams he could cook up when she was feeling like juicy was exactly what the doctor ordered.

"Hon, I think you're in love with him," she told him one night when they were sprawled across her couch.

"I think you're right," he couldn't argue.

"You don't sound too happy about it," she noted.

"Would _you_ sound happy about unrequited affection?"

"Not really," she agreed. She perked up a moment later, "But let's think about the chance that he _could_ return your affections. If there was absolutely one daydream or fantasy that you could play out, what would it be?"

He'd never thought of that before, so he didn't have an answer.

* **

Once he'd started asking himself that question, there suddenly didn't seem to be anything really worth the effort.

Oh, he had favorite daydreams and fantasies that he revisited several times, but nothing really called to him to be a daydream/fantasy that wanted to be acted out.

Ideally, he would want them all acted out at some point, but there wasn't one that immediately came to mind as a must-have daydream/fantasy.

He wasn't sure he even had one.

Or even wanted one.

After all, his current circumstances could technically be called something of a daydream/fantasy in and of itself.

He was content with his life and he came to wonder if he needed to think about a daydream or fantasy to act out, because he just didn't have anything that came to mind aside from having a romantic relationship with Peter, anyway.

* **

Neal heaved a sigh as he watched the clock tick ever closer to Thursday.

Peter would be back on Thursday from some - no doubt - asinine meeting that really only served the purpose of taking Peter away from him for four days.

He hated those meetings more than the ones he was forced to attend simply because Peter was away. 

Of course, his art reflected that and he smiled sheepishly at his sketch of Peter leaning against his desk with a playful smile on his face.

Why couldn't Neal have attended this meeting with him? It was always four days in September without fail and Neal had volunteered to go, but Peter didn't want him to go.

He'd said that it was Feds Only, but Neal couldn't help thinking that Peter didn't want him along for some other reason. Sure, he'd teased him about having a secret lover - which made Neal burn with envy despite not having a claim -, but Peter had rolled his eyes and made him feel silly with well placed banter and Neal knew without a doubt that it was just a meeting.

Still didn't explain his suspicion that Peter really didn't want him along, but he was still relieved that Neal was the only person in Peter's life.

Then again, Neal leaned back in his chair and tilted his head up at his kitchen ceiling in thought, maybe Peter would tell him about a romantic interest when it happened. Not like Peter had a history of dating in the time Neal had known him.

What would someone have to do to get the man's attention?

Curiosity warred with the refusal to have to share Peter and Neal shook his head at himself.

He wasn't going to get answers right now.

Not able to create art that didn't relate to Peter - or didn't have the potential to -, Neal stood, yawned and stretched before deciding to join June for a rare night together when they were both in the house.

He found his landlady in the dining room, at the head of the table and swirling a glass of dark wine in her hand. 

"Fancy meeting you here," he smiled slightly before sliding into a seat at her right. "Would that be a bottle to share, by chance?"

The older woman didn't seem to have heard him, dark eyes trained on the glass she held.

"June?" Neal frowned. That wasn't like her at all.

Usually, she would make some quip about going through 'Peter-withdrawal' before slipping an anecdote into the conversation and Neal would laugh and feel better.

Now, however, she was solemn and quiet and it reminded him so much of Peter before the older man got clingy that the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"June?" he sounded small and uncertain and he suddenly wanted Peter with him in case it was bad news. "Are... are you okay?"

"Hm?" she finally looked up with eyes that looked so much older than he was used to. "Oh. Neal. Good Evening," the wan smile on her face didn't make him feel better.

"Everything okay?"

She took a deep shuddering breath and let it out in a rush, unreadable eyes dropping to the tie around his neck that he didn't bother to take off after getting in two hours previously.

"Someone said something to me today," she finally responded. "Today of all days," her wry smile lacked humor. 

As surprised as Neal was to find out that June was upset because someone said something - she was one of those people that didn't let things like that slow her down -, he still felt a protective anger bubble inside. "And what was it that this person said to you?" he wanted to know. 

"Now, now," she read his expression and her smile turned a little more familiar as she reached over to pat his arm as it lay on the table. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't a personal affront, but I will admit to taking it personally, I guess you could say. And I'm not..." she looked away and took a breath before looking back with solemn brown eyes. "It was a young person and, well, you know how it is."

"But it still hurt," he insisted, reading her in turn.

"Well, of course it does, but... perhaps 'hurt' might not be the correct word to use. I'm not sure I know what I'm feeling right now, anyway."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" there's a lot of things he and Mozzie - and Peter, though he would deny to his very last breath - wouldn't do for June, but Neal still felt that he couldn't repay her enough for all she did for him every day. The least he could do was comfort her and soothe ruffled feathers. "I'm told that it helps to talk. Maybe you can find words to explain how you feel if you start talking. And you know I'll listen."

"I know, I know," she nodded, patting his arm again. "It's just... it's difficult to find a point to start and the words to continue the thought with."

"How about from the beginning?" he suggested. "Always the best place to start, huh?"

She let her gaze fall to the table for long silent moments before her grip tightened on both the glass and his arm. "Come with me," she stood and pulled him up from the chair. Her hand fell into the crook of his elbow as she more or less marched him from the dining room and up the stairs, the conman curious as to their destination and the reason for being there.

They burst out onto the roof minutes later, June's grip tighter than he'd ever felt it as she moved them around the swimming pool and to the edge of the roof where lower Manhattan lay sprawled out before them. 

"What do you see?" she asked him.

"Manhattan," he answered, blue eyes dutifully taking in the scene he rarely felt in the mood to see. 

He didn't usually come up to the roof - either on cases, with Peter, with Mozzie or just content with his balcony -, but he remembered very well the spread of lights from here to the Hudson.

The City that Never Sleeps was awake on this night, lights in every color in every direction. Noises seemed to float on a very slight breeze from street level, but nothing new about that.

"Yes, but there is something else going on tonight. Look ahead and to the right. What do you see?"

He turned his head and it took a long minute to realize that Manhattan had something new going on. "Right there," he reached out and pointed. "Two blue beams of light shooting into the sky. Is it new?"

To the left of the Freedom Tower - her antennae lit as it usually was -, stood two powerful beams shooting blue into the sky. It was a very pretty sight with the stars shining dimly over head. 

"That pair of blue lights," June spoke after long silent minutes, "is powerful enough to see from all corners of the City. Every year on this night, I come up here to watch them soar. I've seen pictures taken from New Jersey, but I think there's just something about seeing them in person."

"You should go over to New Jersey and see them for yourself," Neal watched the lights. He wondered if Peter was over there, seeing the same thing from across the water.

"I don't want to leave New York, Neal. It seems... like slighting a memory," her voice turned wistful. "I'm old enough to remember a time when those lights didn't exist. They didn't have a reason to. The buildings they've come to symbolize were still there and the day hadn't yet come to pass. It's called [Tribute in Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_in_Light) and commemorates the attacks of September 11, 2001."

September 11, 2001.

"I was in Europe on 9/11. At least, not in America," Neal frowned. "I wasn't personally affected, but I mean it's New York. So, I was kind of affected, anyway, but not... personally?"

"Had you ever visited the Twin Towers before then?"

"Not the inside, no," but he could remember looking up from anywhere in Manhattan to see the gleaming facades of the Twin Towers. 

Kate had asked once if he'd wanted to visit the Towers after catching him looking from a rooftop hideaway, but he'd always thought the Towers would always be there for him to visit years down the road and he'd told her as much. 'No,' he'd smiled before glancing back at the arresting simplicity of the sight. 'I'll always have the opportunity.'

A lost opportunity.

Like the rest of the world, he'd watched the Towers come down from the safety of a television screen.

He'd mourned the architecture and [the art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artwork_damaged_or_destroyed_in_the_September_11_attacks) destroyed as any good artist would, but it had never affected him personally aside from his being an adopted New Yorker and that would seem like reason enough to be affected, wouldn't it?

He didn't lose anyone that day, but New York did. And he supposed he should feel at least a sense of solidarity with his City, but he didn't know anyone who died.

"I lost several friends that day," June followed his gaze to the lit Tribute. "I lost my sense of security. Sometimes, I would think that we all lost a kind of innocence that day, too. Nothing was the same after that and a lot of us will never be the same again, still stuck in that moment where everything just stopped and changed. I know the passage of time, but every year it seems like it just happened yesterday."

"And you said someone said something to you earlier," Neal looked at her. "It was about 9/11."

"Yes," she sipped her wine again. "It was a young man. Myself and a few of the girls were making our way back from Ground Zero and one of the girls encountered this young man, who looked to be protesting something. She told him that this was no time for protests because it was a commemoration of the events of September 11. And you know what he told us? 'Why should I care?' And... I honestly just... couldn't find an answer. After thinking on it since, I think that it's ... difficult to understand how much people live in bubbles. Those of us who were personally affected live in a bubble. Those of us who were here live in a bubble. Those who were down there at Ground Zero live in a bubble. The whole of New York City - those affected and present and still alive to remember - live in a bubble. People like you can't enter into that bubble nor can anyone else who had little connection at all. That brings its own kind of bubble, one of security and 'that would never happen where I live' and 'why should I care about something that doesn't affect me and probably never will?' I can't enter into that bubble, just like you can't enter mine. I can't  _make_ you enter into my bubble by force and you won't have a snowball's chance of getting me into yours, because our bubbles won't let us. The New York of 9/11 lives in a bubble that the New York of Today can't begin to imagine. Just like '9/11' couldn't begin to imagine 'Today'. 

"And after thinking about all of that, I have half a mind to track that young man down and tell him, 'You live in your bubble and I live in mine.' I can't make him care about something he wasn't even alive for. That, I think, is probably the hardest thing to swallow."

"But, if you think about it," Neal frowned, blue eyes going distant as he stared past the lights, "a lot of stuff going on today can be traced directly - maybe even indirectly - back to 9/11."

"That, my dear," she gave a humorless chuckle, "is called 'irony'."

Irony.

Ironic that some of the problems America faced to this day were kick-started by an event that people just didn't seem to care about anymore.

It wasn't surprising, due to the loss of historical context surrounding a lot of other things, but it was sad nonetheless.

"I just don't know, anymore," June patted his arm with a sigh as she stared out at the Lights. "I just don't know."

 

* * *

 

Neal found himself back on the roof a couple hours later, the Lights still shining.

_'Why should I care?'_

It was something to think about.

Why  _should_ he care?

On the one hand, the Towers had been just buildings. They'd held no personal significance to or for him, not like a lot of the remainder of the City who were old enough to remember their lives with the Towers in them. 

To him, they'd been eye-catching and strangely mesmerizing to the point that he recalled several instances of lost time while staring at the Twin buildings reflecting the sunlight. 

And now...

Now, Twin beams of light marked their locations.

On the other hand, people  _died_.

People like June were still affected by 9/11 all these years later.

People were probably still suffering from PTSD all these years later, because he knew PTSD could last for decades upon decades if it ever went away.

Probably not all were first responders or those who had found themselves working a section of their fields that no one could have ever prepared them for.

People had [lost](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/09/10/loved-ones-survivors-still-struggle-pain-sept-11/89359192/) family members and friends and loved ones - were  _still_[losing](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/a-daughter-her-father-9-11-and-the-weight-of-dust/) [them](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25725070/first-responders-coal-ash-spill-illness-death/) decades on - and they would most certainly never forget.

The amount of lives taken and affected by that one day should make people give a damn, but time had created this distance helped along by people's willingness to forget bloodshed on American soil. Neal recognized that people preferred to not think about death - especially on a scale that even now was still being debated due to the utter lack of physical remains to actually confirm -, but he could at least understand that a majority of those lost died in a city they loved. 

There was a tenuous sense of connection on that front, but not exactly enough of one.

He gusted a sigh and combed a hand through his hair.

"Why should I care?" he frowned to himself. "Why should I care?"

He didn't like violence, so maybe it wasn't much good to try thinking of the human cost. He didn't like thinking about it. 

If anything - as horrible as it was to admit even in the private confines of his own head -, he probably cared more about the actual buildings.

So, why should Neal care about 9/11? 

9/11 was when the Twin Towers came down, the sight he was used to seeing no matter where he was in New York City.

"Alright, then," he nodded to himself, satisfied at having an answer. 

Still, though.

There was always the knowledge that people died in the buildings.

As long as he kept that part off to a corner of his mind, he would be fine.

 

* * *

 

 

Of course, now that he had an answer, he had no idea exactly what to do with it.

He cared about 9/11 - regardless of why -, but what could he do about that?

It was a frustrating question that plagued him long after the Lights flickered off for another year.

He barely registered Peter's arrival back to the office over the next week as he tried to figure out what to do about this new aspect of his own reality.

Peter, of course, noticed his lack of attention and tried coaxing it out of him one afternoon.

"You okay?" the older man tilted his head at Neal's distant look during lunch at a favorite place of theirs. "I noticed you've been distracted for a couple weeks."

"Yeah," he shook his head and spared him a light smile. "Just something June said and I've kind of been fixated on that since."

"Is it a problem?" Peter leaned forward, brow creased in concern. 

"Nah. It's not, really."

"Well, it has to be something if I haven't been able to get a rise out of you since I got back from New Jersey."

Neal thought about it for a while longer before sighing in resignation. If he couldn't talk to Peter about it, who could he talk to?

"She and some friends had an encounter with a young guy, who had a point. Why should he care about 9/11 if he didn't have anything to do with it? To be honest," he looked over Peter's shoulder in thought, "I really didn't know why I should care, either. And, before you say anything, I did think about it." His blue eyes dropped to his half-eaten salad, "Basically, what it amounted to, it came down to either the caring about the people or the actual structures themselves and I decided that I was going to care about 9/11 because I remember those Towers. I remember looking up at the skyline in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and seeing the Towers reflecting a sunset. I kind of always refused to actually go there, because I never thought something like 9/11 would actually happen and I would always have the opportunity to go up to the  _Windows on the World_ restaurant or visit the shopping concourse under the complex. I never got to go," he shrugged. "I'm honestly not sure I would have, even if they were still standing there. Mostly because I'd get lost just staring at them. Actually taking that step inside... That's just never been important, you know?"

He frowned at an olive as he shook his head. "So, I have a reason to care about something, but I don't actually know what to do with that information. Although..."

He could still clearly see the Towers in his mind's eye, no matter where he'd been in the city to see them. 

Maybe that was it.

Maybe that was what he could do with his new information.

If he could visualize it, he could  _paint_ it.

And he had a repository of memories to choose from. 

A smile stretched across his face as the idea settled and he looked up to beam at Peter, who stared blankly back. "I got it! Come on, Peter, hurry up and eat," he pushed the man's cheeseburger towards him as he picked up his salad fork. "The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get back to work and the sooner I can get started on my project!"

He was so wrapped up in his idea that Peter's behavior didn't register as they finished eating and made their way back to the office.

**~**


End file.
